Story of a forgotten soul
by Caedere Lamina
Summary: Shinji decides to open up to the world just in time for NERV to incoporate his openness into one of their schemes.


A/N:

Ah… wonderful remnants of the past. I haven't written anything for nearly six months – nothing of which had any relation to Evangelion – because I just haven't felt inspired. I don't feel inspired now, either. However, I happened to remember writing some things that _did_ relate to Evangelion before that faithful day in mid July that my hard drive decided to fry. I got a new computer, yes, even though my old one works fine now. That being the case, my parents handing that computer over to my little sister. There are a lot of things I've written that six year olds don't need to read, so I went into my sister's room with a floppy disc and managed to salvage some old files containing fan fiction I had never posted (and some containing continuations of fan fiction that I had decided to discontinue). Very few of these where decent, seeing as I was extremely immature, had horrible grammar, and somehow managed to break my spell checker. 

I went back through the files and happened to find this… done in large, eccentric fonts, bright colors, and with very few words spelt correctly. I did, however, reformat it and decide to post it despite its lack of originality and foreshadowing. 

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Disclaimer:

Neon Genesis Evangelion is © Gainax/Project Eva. TV Tokyo. 1997 A.D.Vision. All characters are property of their original owners unless otherwise noted.  I take no credit to the creation of 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' character design or original story line.

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Yume

"The Story of a forgotten soul." 

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Shinji lay back on his bed, his arms folded across the back of his head. His head lay tilted slightly to the left as he watched the green digital numbers on the face of his clock tick by. Longer and longer it was taking. He turned his head back up to look at the ceiling with a sigh. 

_Where is Misato?_ He wondered. She had called him when he'd gotten home hours ago. _"Don't take off your school uniform. Keep it on. We're going to go out someplace tonight. See if you can get a hold of Asuka and tell her to be in at a decent time. I want her to come also." _He could hear her voice echo in his head. 

Shinji glanced at the clock again. 1:23. _But that was hours ago._ He told himself. _I hope Misato is all right ...  I also wish Asuka'd come home_ Suddenly he shook his head. Why wish something like that? "Maybe ... " He muttered aloud. "I'm afraid of being alone. Abandoned."

_That's it._ He convinced himself. He didn't want a repeat of what had happened with his father. _What WOULD I do if everyone I know now abonded me and left me all alone?_

Die.

The word came to him suddenly, but before he was able to give it any thought he heard the door to the house slide open accompanied by Pen-Pen's cheer of glee seeing that someone besides the tedious Shinji was home.  "Shinjiiii ... " The familiar voice of the German- Accented Asuka reached his ears as she called out to him. "Guten tag!"

"Ha." He whispered to himself. "More like, gutenight."  

"Shinji?" Asuka's voice called to him. It sounded slightly whiny, as usual. He knew she was looking for him, but he wasn't exactly sure that he wanted to be found. Especially by Asuka. 

Yet, much to his despise, something down inside his heart forced him to answer her calls. "I'm back here... " Shinji told her as he hopped up off the bed and wondered absent-mindedly into the hall way. Entering the hallway, the scent of some sort of expensive cologne reached his nose. "Asuka?"  He questioned as he turned to look for her. "Why are you wearing colo-" He cut off. Kaji had entered his field of vision. _So that's who was wearing it ..._

"Oh."  Shinji forced a laugh. "Hello there Kaji ... " A scream came from the bathroom, drowning out Shinji's talking.

"Who used my shampoo?" Asuka was screaming.  Shinji gulped. He knew it had probably been Misato, but he would get blamed anyway.

"Another normal night, eh, Shinji?" Kaji asked with a grin as he turned to go to the door. 

"It would seem so ... " Shinji sighed, turning to Kaji. "But where is Misato?" 

Kaji turned away so his gaze no longer met Shinji's. Crashes could be heard from the bathroom as Asuka threw things about in a mad frenzy. "She's with your father." 

"My ... My father?" Shinji demanded. "... Why?"

"Well," Kaji turned back to look into Shinji's eyes. He could see that they where filled with worry and concern. "It's nothing, Shinji". Kaji looked over at the door once more. "I'm sure Misato well tell you about it in the morning… " And with that, Kaji disappeared into the shadows of the night.

"Shinji!" Asuka exclaimed as she entered the room, tossing the empty bottle at his head. "Why'd you let Kaji go?" 

The bottle bounced off Shinji's head with a hollow sound. He brought a hand up to rub his head. "Ow… "  He turned to look at Asuka, as opposed to the door where his thoughts had been concentrated on his father and Misato. "I'm sorry... " 

Asuka waved her hand at him and turned away with a pathetic sounding sigh. "It's not YOUR fault. You're too stupid to have stopped him anyway. Its not like he'd listen to a little worthless boy like you ... " 

Shinji turned away. Despite how many times she'd insulted him, he still thought she still treated him like he was a piece of nothing. All he wanted was for no one to hate him.  He just wanted to be accepted. "I'm sorry ... " 

Asuka snorted at him and turned back to face him. "There you go again! Stop being sorry for everything."

Suddenly Shinji noticed something. Asuka smelled strange ... but not strange in a bad way. Almost like she was wearing some kind of foreign perfume. He also noticed something else, which Asuka also noticed. At that point she was quiet unhappy.

"Ugh! You little pervert!" She screamed at him. He'd always known her to hate guys her age or younger, but like older guys. He never understood why she could be so fond of Kaji and the way his mind worked, yet think Shinji was a horrible pervert. He had always shrugged it off, assuming it was the way a girls mind worked.

Shinji turned away from her. "I'm sor-" 

She cut him off. "Stop being sorry!" 

Shinji fell silent and began to stare out the window, into the darkness of the night, drowning himself in thought.

After a few minutes, Asuka broke the silence. "Shinji ... are you alright?" 

He turned and pushed behind her quickly, making his way down to his room. "Yes." He yelled down at her as he slammed the sliding door shut behind him, "I'll be fine."

Shinji stood in the cold of his dark, lonely room and stared at the wall. "Why do I have to lie to everyone?" He whispered to himself. "Why do I always hide?"

Because you want everyone to accept you.

You don't want to be alone.

You just want to be loved.

Shinji frowned at the stupid voice in the back of his head. He hated it, but it was right. That was exactly why. 

Shinji walked over and sat down on the edge of his bed, looking back at the door.  He watched as it silently slid open and Asuka poked her head inside.  She had the most beautiful red hair he'd ever seen and her deep blue eyes seemed to shine in the moonlight emitted from his bedroom window. Seeing he was still awake and looking straight at her, she began to retreat into the comfort of the hallway. 

"Asuka." Shinji whispered.

Upon hearing him call her name, she kept her head where it was and glared at him coldly. "What do you want?" 

Shinji looked into her eyes questioningly. He didn't understand how she thought at all. Everything she said surprised him. Why would she walk into his room for no reason when she thought he was asleep, then leave when she noticed he was, yet claim to hate him? Shinji decided he could take one of two approaches to this.  He could explode at her or her could be gentle and try to work it out of her. He didn't want to fight at the moment so he chose the second approach. 

"Why did you come into my room?" He asked quietly.

"It's none of your business." She told him, beginning to turn and walk back out the door.

Shinji narrowed his eyes at her. "Yes, it is. It's my room." 

Asuka turned back to face him and let the door slide the remainder of the way open. " I..." She stopped talking, almost as though she was afraid to finish her sentence. 

Shinji waited for her to pick back up. 

Asuka looked up into his eyes. The look she wore on her face almost looked as though she was pleading him not to make her say anything.

After a few moments of silence Asuka looked away from him and answered quietly. "Because...  I was worried." 

Shinji's look lightened into a more confused and depressed look than the stern one he had been giving Asuka when demanding an answer. He didn't say anything though.

Asuka didn't know why, but she took this as an invitation to join Shinji on the edge of his bed. She made her way next to her and joined him on the bed. 

After a few more moments of silence, Shinji broke the silence this time. "Asuka... " He asked, careful not to look into her eyes. "... Why where you worried about me?" 

Asuka looked away from him as he had done to her. "I..." She shook her head as though to avoid saying something.

"You seem so ignored and forlorn, Shinji." She told him. "I can see how hard you try to fit in and be loved, yet it all backfires on you. People just think you're a soft-shelled coward."  She told him.

Shinji glanced at her in surprise. He hadn't been expecting her to say anything along those lines. He suspected, for some reason, that she would continue, and of course, she did.

"I just never liked people like that... " She told him. "So I guess I developed a second nature to being mean to you. I didn't think anyone would accept me for who I am if I changed and stopped insulting you because I thought it hurt you. So I kept on going and kept on hating you." She stopped and looked over at him. " I really don't hate you though, Shinji. You're just so easy to make fun of and call a coward. I'm sorry.  I really do worry about you a lot and I'm concerned that if you don't start looking at things the way you should, you'll just get hurt even more." Asuka stopped again and looked away once more. "And if you must know ... I'm pretty sure Ayanami has some sort of attachment to you, also." 

These last words where what caught Shinji off guard. He had been suspecting the rest for a long time. But, Rei?  He resisted the urge to shake his head at the thought.  He had to admit, he had some sort of attachment to her, but it seemed more like the fond attachment that a son has to his mother. Shinji had realized to himself long ago that he didn't remember much about his mother and that his father had obviously been very changed after Yui was killed in the testing accident. "Ayanami?" Shinji managed to choke out.

Asuka nodded. "Didn't you ever notice the way she never really looks at you and when she does she's got that concerned look on her face, almost as though she where trying to protect you from something. Like a mother defending a son." 

_Like a mother defending a son._ Those words echoed in Shinji's mind, over and over. That's almost what he had always looked up to Rei as. A mother figure. Even though he only felt a faint presence of a mother in her. She was too young to be a mother. It seemed to him like maybe she was a mother re-living the life she had always dreamed of living, but more miserably. He had also noticed she seemed to be so emotionless and constantly subdued in thought.

"But enough with my babbling." Asuka said, going on and braking Shinji's train of thought. "You've gotten to ask all the questions so far while I spilled out most of my locked away thoughts and emotions." She paused, thinking of wording. "Why don't you tell me about yourself?" 

After everything Asuka had said over the past few minutes, he had found her to be a much deeper and understanding person than she appeared. _Maybe_ he told himself _just maybe I could talk to her… _Shinji swallowed. He wasn't sure he wanted to share all his locked up thoughts and emotions with a person like Asuka that could go and change on you so suddenly, but lately he'd been feeling like he really needed someone to talk to. 

"Alright," He told her, "That's fair..." He paused for a moment, needing to think of exactly what  he'd say. "As you know ...  I left my father shortly after my mother died and I never really did enjoy the fact that he refused to except me as who I was - a coward.  So I was always striving to be accepted and liked by everyone else, I didn't want to be abandoned and alone again. So I guess I tried to hard, always running from anything I thought might hurt other people ... mostly because I didn't want anyone else to have to go through pain. I guess no one really got the logic behind that, because they just accused me of being a coward. I always hated them for it and I never got along with anyone well. I developed the rule in my mind, never to let my soul trust anyone out of fear I'd get attached to them and they'd be taken away from me." Shinji paused again. "Like my mother." He sighed and continued.  "I guess when I received the news that I could be an Eva pilot, it thrilled me to know that I might actually be excepted by my dad after so long. But at the same time it confused me, because I had always told myself that I hated my father. I strived to hard to make my father proud of me and then whenever I was forced to go talk to him, I was always afraid of saying the wrong thing. After convincing myself I had made so many mistakes in my life I never really had a very high opinion of myself so I always assumed no one liked me and no one would except me for who I really was.. These days I feel so alone like no one would understand me if I tried to be myself, and like ... just that horrible unloved feeling." 

The look that Asuka gave him after he had said all that had absolutely no emotion in it that he could read. She looked almost like Rei, he told himself. And that was a disturbing thought.

"Shinji... " She said quietly. "I know exactly how you feel... " She paused for a second as she could see the look on his face turn into one that read _no, you don't._ "The unloved feeling anyway...  I had always promise myself I'd be strong and proud and never let myself cry after what happened with my mother. I swore to myself I wouldn't be vulnerable and innocent anymore." Asuka paused yet again and looked away from him. "And I feel that doing that has made it too hard for people to read me for who I really am and it upsets me that people assume they know me when... they really don't." She sighed to and caught her breath. "I just feel really alone, like no one knows me." 

Shinji looked amazed. _Maybe someone does know how you feel,_ He told himself. _She's another horrible victim of the way life works._

Asuka looked over at him. "Now you probably think I'm an idiot for choosing to live my life this way." She said, going back to her usual cold tone. She pushed herself off the bed and made her way to the door. "I'm leaving. I don't need to be put down by you." She told him as she slid the door open and began to step out.

Shinji resisted the urge to reach out after her. "Your... going to be alright, aren't you?" 

She stared at him coldly. "Of course." She slammed the sliding door shut so hard that it bounced back open about three inches. "What the hell have I got to not be okay about?" He could hear her mutter, her voice shaky.

Shinji started to call back out after her, but it was too late. He heard her footsteps disappear down the hallway and into her room. Then the door slammed to her room as well. 

Shinji picked up his tape player and put on the headphones, laying back on his bed on he pressed the play button and let himself be absorbed into the music, stopping him for thinking any longer. 

A few minutes later Shinji thought he heard something and he turned the sound on his tape player off. Slowly the sound of Asuka crying in the next room over filled his ears. He looked down at the numbers on the tape player flashing by silently as he allowed himself to be engulfed by thoughts once more.


End file.
